Halloween

Here's what you should know about Halloween at our house: we went all out this year. I made these pumpkin spider candles and the halloween block letters and the girls' costumes. Those little plates with the trick-or-treating kids are my pride and joy. I get giddy when we eat off of them. Oh, and yes, Matt Malone did go trick-or-treating with that mustache on.

Leaves

Fall is my season. It's when I'm happiest and most energetic. I come alive as the leaves turn their vibrant colors and the air turns crisp and fresh. I think about fall all year long. The first year we lived in Moses Lake I braced myself for some serious fall blues. I knew it would be a big bummer for me to live in a place with few trees and very little fall colors. I was right. It was like winter with no Christmas or knowing it's your birthday but not celebrating it. I knew it was fall, but nothing really happened. Last year was pretty much the same. Except I knew I was moving east. By the time we were settled in Johnstown the leaves were all gone. That's when I started dreaming of fall. Last December. We would look out at the bare brown drab trees and I would say, "Can you imagine how gorgeous this will be in the fall?!" Oh, Spring was pretty and summer was lush and green, but I was focused on the prize. Fall would be magnificent. Of course, I didn't look at the gigantic trees throughout our 1.3 acre lot and think, "who's going to rake all of these leaves?" All I could think about were the colors.

And when the weather changed I reveled as the sun glinted through the weightless leaves as they floated slowly down from the trees. I exulted as I looked out at the magnificence of endless forests filled with trees all ablaze with red, orange, gold and brown.

Fall did not disappoint. We got our leaves. Oh, did we get our leaves.

The other night I spent 2 hours blowing the leaves out to the road (the road crew will come and get them if you can only get them to the street). I made a small dent in the yard during that 2 hours. Like maybe 1/6th of the yard. And that night it was really windy. By morning you couldn't tell I had ever been there. And the trees still look completely full of leaves! You can't have too much of a good thing, right?

Pumpkin Patch Drama

I don't consider myself much of a complainer. Well, maybe that's not true. I don't consider myself the type of person to complain about services rendered for money. I'm not the kind of girl who sends her food back because she doesn't like it or complains about uncomfortable seats in the movie theater. I'm just not.

It was my birthday this week. Matt bought me these beautiful flowers. I love them. But what I really wanted for my birthday was to go to the pumpkin patch. I know it shouldn't be a big deal to me, but I don't like buying pumpkins at the grocery store. Worse is buying pumpkins that are layed out on the ground in rows and called a pumpkin patch. Pumpkins on the vine only for me, thank you very much! But October has been crazy for us and gets even crazier from here on out. Tonight was our one shot to go. I knew it would be tricky. It gets dark early around here and Matt rarely gets out of the office before 6. I had to get all the kids ready, pick up some cash and meet Matt at his office with dinner in the car. All in the hopes that he would actually be ready to leave by 5 and get up there before 6.

We drove all the way out there and just missed the hayride tractor pulling out headed toward the pumpkin patch. We paid our $30(!!!) and waited patiently for our turn. When the tractor returned, each passenger had a pumpkin. By the time we were on our way, we were losing sunlight fast...

And then we saw it--the pumpkin patch! We would make it after all! There were plenty of pumpkins left, too.

But what? The tractor pulled past the pumpkin patch and turned around. Surely he was just repositioning the tractor for our return trip to the farm. No, he was passing the pumpkin patch! "Wait! What about our pumpkins?!" Then the driver swore up and down that he asked all of us before we got on if we wanted pumpkins and we said we were just there for the ride. "Can you turn back around?" "No." "Can we get off and walk?" "Absolutely not" "Can we just stay on when you get back to the farm and come back out here?" "I've got 100 people waiting back at the farm to come out here." I was TICKED OFF. The light was fading and we were headed back to the farm without pumpkins. The other riders kept telling me that I shouldn't mess with that guy. He looked mad. I WAS MAD.

When we got back to the farm I marched myself right up to the front desk and asked for the manager. I never do this. I let that lady have it. "We paid $30 to take our kids out to the pumpkin patch and pick their pumpkins off the vine. Your guy didn't stop at the patch, wouldn't let us off, and refused to take us back there. We want to pick our pumpkins off the vine. TONIGHT." Matt thought I was kind of mean. The lady let us drive our own car out there (something they don't do) and get our own pumpkins. And guess what? We had the place all to ourselves!